Learning by listening to songs

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Voytek
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Learning by listening to songs

Postby Voytek » Sat May 20, 2017 10:20 am

Has anyone tried to learn a bit of a language by listening to songs?
If so, please, share with us your experiences and results.
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Re: Learning by listening to songs

Postby blaurebell » Sat May 20, 2017 10:31 am

There are a few lyricstraining users on here, so I'm sure you'll get some responses to this one from people with more experience. Although I can't quantify it, listening to music actually helped me a lot between 14-16 when I was listening to a lot of English language music, writing down the lyrics for the CDs that didn't come with them, singing along, that sort of thing. Right now I'm starting a new Spanish project to learn lunfardo, which is Argentinian street slang from the 1900s and appears in a lot of tangos. So I'm transcribing lyrics again, looking up the unknown words - partly in obscure online lunfardo dictionaries or in our Argentinian - Spanish dictionary. It's pretty specific, but really fun.
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Re: Learning by listening to songs

Postby zenmonkey » Sat May 20, 2017 4:52 pm

I've enjoyed using songs to improve my ear at an advanced stage and also as a way of vocabulary and repetitive learning in an enjoyable manner.

I used Anki and the sub2srs tool to slice up a series of german music videos into something learnable - basically download the video, get the lyrics, sync that in a syncing program and then sub2srs and anki. It seems like a lot of work but it is actually also the first step that I used in learning the translation and words.

I must have now about a dozen songs in anki (more or less successful as I played with the sub2srs options).

Definitely an enjoyable complement for learning.
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Re: Learning by listening to songs

Postby reineke » Sat May 20, 2017 7:14 pm

Listening to oldies, chansons, cartoon theme songs and modern stuff that's light on instrumentals is a great way to learn a language.

I don't care for the "training" part.
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Re: Learning by listening to songs

Postby Xenops » Sat May 20, 2017 7:20 pm

I was thinking of learning some French songs. Here is my current plan of attack:

1. find the song, find the lyrics
2. take a dictionary and translate words I don't know.
3. Memorize lyrics
4. try to sing along with the original song.
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Re: Learning by listening to songs

Postby zenmonkey » Sat May 20, 2017 7:50 pm

Xenops wrote:I was thinking of learning some French songs. Here is my current plan of attack:

1. find the song, find the lyrics
2. take a dictionary and translate words I don't know.
3. Memorize lyrics
4. try to sing along with the original song.


So much great French music to work with. Have fun!! (Check out Renan Luce, Camille, Pauline Croze, etc....)
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Re: Learning by listening to songs

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sun May 21, 2017 12:04 pm

I teach French to (well interact in French with) my daughter, and we often sing together in French. I bought this when she was much younger:
https://www.amazon.fr/CHANSONS-MON-ENFANCE-CHANTE-AVEC/dp/2753020671 and it was a good first choice. Plenty of easy songs (the odd trickier one), clearly sung lyrics, nicely presented in the colourful book + good quality audio. We'd sing along having plenty of fun, following along in the book. And I learned a word or two.

This was a good next step:
https://www.amazon.fr/Mes-plus-belles-comptines-Collectif/dp/2070618587
Again, decent audio, and this one has cardboard like pages more resilient to wear and tear. And there's something really special about knowing traditional French folk songs and childrens songs that connects you deeper to the culture.

I then bought this one:
https://www.amazon.fr/gp/aw/d/2092526170/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?__mk_fr_FR=ÅMÅZÕÑ&qid=1495367262&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=toutes+mes+chansons+préférées&dpPl=1&dpID=61aMZuf3TBL&ref=plSrch
The songs are fast at times, audio quality often sketchy, and although 39 songs are contained on the CD, there are 70 in the book. Youtube solves that, but it's a bit of a shame still. However, these songs are beautiful, catchy, French, folky, and child-like, but LOADS of fun! This is easily my favourite song-book so far, and often my daughter will sing some of the songs to herself as she plays. Myself and my wife often find ourselves humming or singing many of the songs (often making up alternative lyrics) and it really is joyful. Great fun! It really is a good way to learn more French. Actually, each of the songs in this book has a section describing the hisorical origins of each song and some reasoning on the lyrics, the tunes and how they related to the culture of that period. Really fun, believe me!

We've bought more songs since, and i can't recommend it enough if teaching your child(ren) a foreign language. And you get to learn too!

LeCon wrote:If anyone is learning French and likes non-gangsta rap with great stories and melodies check out Big Flo et Oli. 'Comme D'hab' is a very good song and their album 'La cours des grands' is very good.

Featuring such lyrics as :

Kebab sans frites pour économiser cinquante centimes
Quoiqu'il arrive t'as toujours un trou dans le jean
Y'a pas vraiment le choix, faut que tu deviennes dentiste
Le vestiaire est payant, donc t'es en doudoune sur la piste

J'ai pas grand chose dans les poches à part mes mains, mais
C'est déjà bien j'ai de quoi écrire des refrains
Et pour mes proches, on verra bien demain
Le soleil, une paire de pote, ça coûte rien


Superb.


Nice :) Thanks for sharing LeCon.
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Re: Learning by listening to songs

Postby jeffers » Sun May 21, 2017 3:37 pm

I listen to music in all the languages I'm learning, as well as a few others. Whenever I start a new language, I begin to search for music I like in that language. It's a language activity that can be done anytime even while doing other things. I'm listening to Alain Bashung right now, having finished listening to Téléphone. There is no way I could quantify the benefits, but it is the sort of thing that I think deepens your understanding of the language. Music is a great introduction to culture and once you get to know famous songs you will notice them cropping up all over the place. For example, the song ça c'est vraiment toi by Téléphone featured in an episode of the TV series Candice Renoir, and I was excited to know it already.

On the other hand, I'm not a fan of "studying" songs. I tried lyrics training, but got bored of it. I always plan to do things like look up unknown words, etc, but I've rarely gotten around to it. One exception is the Jean Louis Aubert's album Les parages du vide, which was worth studying in its own right because all the songs are poems by Michel Houellebecq (here's a sample: https://youtu.be/oRhSK-P-7RA). It was definitely interesting to read the lyrics while listening, and I looked up a few unknown words, but it is rare I will do something like that. In any case, I find that the more you listen to an album, the more clear it becomes over time. Without intending to, you will find yourself able to sing along to an album you've gotten to know well.

There is one learning tool based on music that I did find useful for both French and German: Lyric Language. They are designed for children and feature bilingual songs in which a line is sung in English, then the same line is repeated in the TL (or the other way around). The songs cover a wide range of topics supposedly of interest to children, and the total vocabulary is something like 600-700 words. I found it incredibly cheesy, but tolerable and a good way to pick up some general vocabulary about topics like animals at the zoo, picnics, etc.
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Re: Learning by listening to songs

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sun May 21, 2017 5:50 pm

zenmonkey wrote:
I used Anki and the sub2srs tool to slice up a series of german music videos into something learnable - basically download the video, get the lyrics, sync that in a syncing program and then sub2srs and anki. It seems like a lot of work but it is actually also the first step that I used in learning the translation and words.


Which syncing program do you use?
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Re: Learning by listening to songs

Postby zenmonkey » Sun May 21, 2017 11:36 pm

MorkTheFiddle wrote:
zenmonkey wrote:
I used Anki and the sub2srs tool to slice up a series of german music videos into something learnable - basically download the video, get the lyrics, sync that in a syncing program and then sub2srs and anki. It seems like a lot of work but it is actually also the first step that I used in learning the translation and words.


Which syncing program do you use?


I'm on a Mac - Aegisub is what I found to do the job.

Here is my post on the tool:
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=859&p=2920#p2920
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